The log building at the corner of Shoup and Black Forest Road is 97 years old this year, and for three weekends in August it is the busiest address in the neighborhood. If you live here, you already know the parking gets weird around Festival Saturday. What you may not know is that August is the clearest month of the year for seeing how Black Forest actually works: a volunteer-built community center from 1929, a producers-only farmers market on Shoup Road, and a handful of newer businesses starting to fill in gaps that have been open for decades.
This is a planning guide for people who already live here. No relocation talk. Just what is happening between now and Labor Day, where to be, and what has quietly changed since last summer.
The Three Dates That Anchor the Month
Everything else in August works around these:
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Fri, Aug 7 | 8th Annual Biergarten Fundraiser with WireWood Station | Black Forest Community Center |
| Sat, Aug 8 | 57th Black Forest Festival, 6:30 a.m. start | 12530 Black Forest Rd. |
| Fri, Aug 28 | Eli Cook, Black Rose Acoustic Society concert, 7:00 p.m. | Black Forest Community Center |
One building, three very different nights. The Biergarten kicks off Festival weekend with beer and a live band on Friday evening. Saturday's Festival is the one you plan the month around. This year's theme is Stars, Stripes & Tall Pines, and the schedule brings back the parade, the outhouse races, the outdoor Pancake Picnic Breakfast, the artisan and business booth fair, kids' games, tractor rides, and a petting zoo. Service animals only inside the event, which is worth flagging if you usually bring the dog everywhere.
Then a three-week breather, and the Black Rose Acoustic Society closes the month with blues guitarist Eli Cook on August 28. Doors at 6:15, show at 7:00, tickets $15 general and $8 for members and students. The society skips its usual first-Friday-in-August concert every year to leave room for Festival weekend, so August 28 is the only Rose show on the calendar this month.
Saturday Mornings Belong to Shoup Road
The Backyard Market at 6845 Shoup Road runs every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and this is its seventh season. It is worth understanding what "producers-only" actually means here, because most markets in the region are not.
Every vendor at Backyard Market grows, bakes, or makes what they sell. No resellers, no distributors, no bulk-bought produce dressed up as local. Seventy-plus vendors show up on a typical Saturday, along with food trucks, live music from local musicians, and a free kids corner. They accept SNAP/EBT with a Produce Bonus, which is easy to miss if you have never needed to ask. The 2026 season runs March 14 through December 12, so you have a long runway even after the summer crowd thins out.
The routine that seems to work best on Festival Saturday: coffee at Golden Pine Coffee Roasters first, market second, Festival third. Ryan Wanner, who owns Golden Pine, told KOAA earlier this year that his biggest challenge as a small operator here is convincing people to stop in on their way somewhere else rather than driving past. That is a very Black Forest problem. Most of us live on lots big enough that "popping out" is a fifteen-minute commitment, and habits form around whichever direction the car is already pointed.
What Actually Changed This Year
A pilates studio opened. That sounds unremarkable until you realize Thrive Hive Pilates, which went in on Black Forest Road across from the Chicken Coop, is the first of its kind in the Forest. A gym, also a first, opened around the same time. For a community that has historically driven into Colorado Springs or up to Monument for anything resembling a boutique fitness class, that is a real shift.
Pair that with Black Forest Brewing Company at 11590 Black Forest Road, Suite 50, which has been building out a German-inspired food menu and gluten-free beer options alongside the standard craft lineup. Family-friendly hours run 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. most nights, later on Fridays and Saturdays. If you have been here long enough to remember when a weeknight dinner out meant driving to Briargate, the fact that you can now walk into a brewery, a pilates class, and a producers-only market inside a two-mile stretch of Black Forest Road is genuinely new.
The pattern is small businesses filling in categories that used to require a car trip. Not a wave. A trickle. But a trickle after a long dry stretch.
When You Need to Move
Black Forest Regional Park is the release valve, and August is a good month to reset your relationship with it if you have been defaulting to the same short loop all year. Some things worth knowing:
- The park covers 385 acres and offers more than four miles of multi-use trails
- Three main loops are marked on the ground with white, orange, and yellow trail markers, and there are printed maps at the trailheads
- Summer hours run 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., April through October
- The park has a dog park, playgrounds, picnic pavilions, tennis courts, and playing fields
- Main address is 4800 Shoup Road
The most-hiked route is the Black Forest Loop at 2.3 miles with 232 feet of elevation gain. If you want views rather than shade, the Pikes Peak Loop runs longer, closer to 3.2 miles depending on the connectors you take, and threads through the meadow sections that open up toward the Front Range. Trail markings can get thin where the connector paths cross road crossings at Milam, so a downloaded map on your phone is not overkill.
If you have been on the same loop every Saturday for two years, try starting from the Vessey Road access instead of the Shoup Road parking. Different park.
Evenings, When It Cools Off
The August evening rhythm is different from June or July. Sunset is earlier, the pines throw longer shadows across the yards, and the community center starts to fill up on Friday nights.
Black Forest Brewing Company is the obvious pre-concert stop. Bring the family. Bring a friend visiting from town who has never been north of Woodmen. The German-inspired kitchen, the gluten-free beer, and the local spirits behind the bar are the kind of details that make a place feel like it was built for the neighborhood rather than dropped in from a franchise catalog.
The Black Rose Acoustic Society format is worth understanding before you go. The concerts run in a two-part shape: two five-song opening acts in the first hour, a fifteen-minute break, then a one-hour feature performer. The society has been doing this on the second and fourth Fridays of most months since 1994, in a log building that was completed in 1929 by community volunteers. Homemade baked goods and soft drinks at the counter. Free parking across the street at the church lot. Admission is first-come, first-served even with online tickets, so if the show sells well, the earlier you arrive, the better your seat.
The Small Print for Festival Saturday
A few things that residents learn the hard way:
The Festival starts at 6:30 a.m. That is not a typo. The Pancake Picnic Breakfast runs outside on Saturday morning, and the parade is the anchor that pulls everyone toward Shoup and Black Forest Road early. If you live within walking distance, walk. If you do not, park farther out than you think you need to.
Booth rentals and parade spots are usually still available in late July, so if you or your kids' 4-H club or your neighbor's woodworking shop wants in, the Black Forest Community Club takes late entries. The club has 224 member families as of this year, and membership runs $15 annually with a monthly newsletter. It is the cheapest way to actually plug into what the volunteers are planning next.
What This Month Tells You About the Neighborhood
Black Forest voted against incorporation in 2006 and has stayed unincorporated ever since. What that means in practice is that there is no city hall, no mayor, no municipal event calendar. The Community Club, chartered in 1929, does most of the work that a small town's parks and recreation department would do somewhere else. When you go to the Festival on August 8, you are looking at 57 years of volunteers, one log building that turns 100 next year, and a neighborhood that has decided repeatedly to stay in charge of its own calendar.
That is worth showing up for.
If your August plans include thinking about your home in a longer way than just this weekend, whether that means finally figuring out what your acreage is worth in today's market or just wanting a straightforward conversation with someone who lives and works up here, Tami Belsey is a phone call away. Get a free home valuation whenever you are ready.
